Users enjoy entertainment content in many different ways. Users can enjoy content in ways dictated by a traditional content distributor such as a radio station or movie theater, for example, by listening to songs on the radio or watching movies in the theater. When users listen to the radio they don't pay a fee but they often have to listen to advertisements. When users watch a movie in a theater, they usually pay a one-time fee. If they want to see the movie again, they pay again.
Users also enjoy content using physical media usually purchased from another type of content distributor, such as through purchasing songs on CD or movies on DVD. Users often buy content on physical media so that they can enjoy it when they want and as often as they want. Users have grown accustomed to this type of content distribution. They know—so long as their CD or DVD is not damaged—that they can enjoy the song or movie whenever they want and as often as they want. A teenager can listen to “Groove is in the Heart” 1,000 times if she wants. A movie buff can watch “Braveheart” or “Highlander” every night. Further, users have grown accustomed to the implicit benefits of buying content on a CD or DVD; they can lend “Braveheart” to a friend to watch or “Groove is in the Heart” to a classmate to play at a dance party. They can also enjoy the song or movie on whatever device they have that can play it; they can put their CD in their old, home CD player or their new mobile one simply by moving the CD from one player to the other.
More recently, users have been able to access entertainment content digitally, such as through subscription and pay-per-view services. These services have benefits but also disadvantages over buying content on physical media. The advantages include more-flexible ways to pay and use content, such as accessing content for a period of time, e.g., by subscribing to a service that allows them to play a particular song on their MP3 player for 30 days. Another flexible way is to pay to save or download content a certain number of times, e.g., “buying” a song to have a right to download it to a computer and then record/transfer it to other devices or storage as many as seven times. Still another way is similar to watching a movie in a theater in that a user pays once to enjoy the content once; e.g., to play a movie on his own TV once.
Some of these digital distribution services, however, do not permit users to enjoy entertainment content in the ways in which they have grown accustomed. Someone who, in the past, could buy a song on CD and play it on any CD player that she, a family member, or a friend owns, often cannot do so using these services. Also, many users do not trust the reliability and longevity of “owning” content through a service. If a person buys the right to a song, and thus can transfer or save it some number of times, the person may effectively lose that right if their computer storage fails or is stolen. A music fan could buy rights to thousands of songs and lose the right to use all of them if his computer hard drive fails. These are just some of the limitations present in many current digital content distribution services.
Recently, entertainment access systems have been developed that are capable of managing digital content based on a user's identity, one example of which is shown in U.S. application Ser. No. 11/771,923 entitled “Entertainment Access Service.”These systems offer services that free people from the limitations of their storage media and devices. For instance, if a user's CD breaks or hard drive fails, the systems permit a user to continuing accessing his content. If a user wants to use a new device or even many new devices, even if those devices play content with a different format than a user's existing devices, the system may permit him to play his content on those new devices. If a user wants to share content with a friend, the system may permit it even if the user does not have the content on hand.